If I Had Let You Go
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and ninety-seven: He could only stay away for so long before he had to do something for her... even at Nationals.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number ten...<strong>_

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><p><strong>"If I Had Let You Go"<br>[or what I might have hoped would have happened in the finale]  
>PuckQuinn**

It wasn't anything he had expected. It had been something like a year since they'd gone their separate ways, and ever since then he'd done his best to just go ahead and move on. He had quieted it over the months, the best way he could, and after a while he thought it had all gone silent, that he had moved on and everyone was just fine and…

It wasn't full force, the way it started coming back to him, not at first. It was like whispers, voices in his ear that told him 'I'm still here. I'm not as quiet as you think I am.' And with that, it was like he could allow himself to look at her, to notice things he hadn't seen in a long time because… well, because he had told himself to give her some space. Maybe it was the fact that he had kept his distance all this time, but seeing her now, really seeing her, all he could see was… this was not the same girl he had stood with, the year before, looking through the nursery window at their newborn daughter… She could think all she wanted that she was fooling everyone, that a guy like him wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but he saw it… he couldn't not see it. His eyes were good and opened now… and he was awake all over again. But where was that going to take him? How was it going to help?

He wanted to talk to her, to ask, even if he knew she wasn't, if she was alright… Of course by now, in his infinite understanding that she needed space, he had given her a year to build her wall back up where he was concerned. He could recognize it well, a rebuilt version of the wall he'd torn away before. There might be points that were weaker, that he might still be able to get in through, but they were hidden in that hardened wall, not so easy to find. And if he did find the crack, would she be waiting on the other side, ready to blast him away?

Then there was Lauren… If he was going to listen to his old self, the one he'd left behind for Quinn's sake after the baby, he knew he had to be honest with her. He knew a lot of people were baffled by their relationship… he'd been one of them, at first. But she'd been good to him, in helping him move on where he had to. He could pretend all he wanted, she would get hurt in this, and as much as he didn't want that, it was going to happen. He had to deal with it as soon as possible, where it had at least some chance of hurting less… and that went for both of them, because he was almost sure she would kick his ass. If he was thinking about Quinn the way he was at the moment though, then it wouldn't have been fair to Lauren to go on like nothing had changed.

Somehow he found the right words, the ones to make Lauren understand what was really going on… he told her the truth, everything… Some things he wasn't sure he'd even told himself. He saw the hurt – this he expected – but at the same time he saw what honesty could do. He hoped this meant they could remain friends, him and her, because if anything she had become that to him over these few months. He would get his answer a little while later.

Now came the hard part… Between song writing lockdown… and song writing escape, time was going by and he wasn't managing to get her alone long enough to try and talk to her. She just flew by, out of reach, like she always was, but whenever he did see her, she just looked like a volcano inches closer to eruption. A couple of times he did try. He called her name, but either she couldn't hear him or she wouldn't… And then he saw her get in the elevator, an empty elevator, just her… This was as good as it would get, if he could make it on time…

"Quinn, hold that, I think I dropped something when I came down," Lauren caught the door before it could close, peered inside. "Oh, guess not, sorry," she stepped back out, catching his eye as he crossed her path and slipped in the elevator. He'd have to remember to thank her later.

The doors shut, and they could hear all the sounds of the machine as they went up… because neither of them was saying a word. He looked at her, discreet. She was staring up ahead, making a good show of being stuck in her bubble. He'd thought finding the words to let down Lauren easy were hard… This was even worse. For all his intents to go to her, to try and be there for her, he still had no idea what he was supposed to say to her. The seconds ticked on, and before he even had the chance to figure something out, the bell dinged, the doors opened, and she was gone. He stood there as the doors shut again, punched the wall… Now he needed ice for his knuckles.

He didn't get his shot yet by the time everyone headed for the auditorium, dressed for their performances. He kept his eye out for her and… Oh, now he saw it… The volcano was ready to go, and no one would be safe.

Their turn came, and the thirteen of them scurried to get into position. Finn and Rachel were going to start them off with a duet, of course. He was keeping his eye on Quinn so much that he almost missed his cue to enter the stage… but then she almost missed hers, too, which only got him going.

He didn't know what was going to happen, what she was going to do. All he knew was that it was going to happen, right here, right now, any moment… He went with choreography, but he knew he'd forget all about it the moment he needed to move her way and…

He caught it, like seeing someone bracing for a sneeze, and he slipped right out of formation, behind the guys, emerging on the other side, right behind her. He didn't hesitate anymore. He slipped his hand in hers, and it was like he'd jammed a stopper in whatever was about to go down. She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder and… the look in her eyes said it all…

"Breathe," he spoke just for her to hear. "I got you." There was no point pretending they could finish the number now, and he led her off the stage. The others were going on, but he could tell they were confused… This would probably cost them Nationals, but he couldn't care about that now. She looked like she couldn't talk, but at the same time she knew just as well as he did that the moment the others came off the stage they'd get swept along. If they were going to talk, it had to happen now. She was still heaving to catch her breath, to steady and ground herself, but she looked back up at him.

"Why'd you do that?"

"I wasn't going to let it go down like that," he looked to the side and then to her. "Look, I know what we said last year, and I've been doing pretty well at respecting that, right? But I couldn't just stand there and pretend like there was nothing going on," he explained, careful so not to disrupt what he was finally able to say. "I couldn't stay back now, I'm sorry," he shook his head. She was crying now, almost nodding and then… she was in his arms, and he held her… He only looked up when he realized the performance was almost over. "You want to go somewhere else? Before they come and yell at us?" He thought he heard a chuckle, and then she looked up, nodded. "Okay, come on."

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

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><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


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